United States complicity in Israeli war crimes in the Gaza war

The complicity accusation has been made in court, by federal staffers, human rights organizations and academic figures around the world.

[2] While Israel has denied the accusation, international law experts have said that the bombing of Gaza and restrictions on the entry of water, food and other humanitarian supplies could amount to genocide.

[7] Email correspondence between the Pentagon and White House from October 2023 showed U.S. officials were concerned early on about the risk of Israeli war crimes.

[13] According to Rami George Khouri, a professor at the American University of Beirut, media organizations like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and NBC "usually refer to blatant acts of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement in Gaza as 'evacuations', and claim Israel is 'defending itself ' against 'terror'".

[17][better source needed] Prism, a US-based progressive news agency, writes "through journalistic sleight of hand – including the use of passive language, ever-shifting headlines, bothsidesism, and the myth of objectivity – reporters across the US are fuelling the genocide their newsrooms are refusing to acknowledge is taking place".

[17] On November 10, protesters staged a sit-in at The New York Times, declaring that the newspaper was complicit in "laundering genocide" by reporting on rape and sexual violence in the October 7 Hamas attacks.

[18] The Biden administration caused controversy after bypassing Congress on multiple occasions to authorize arms sales to the Israeli military.

[22][23] In December 2023, the WSJ report stated that US arms shipments to Israel since the start of the war included 15,000 bombs and 57,000 155mm artillery shells.

[24] An investigation by The Guardian found the U.S. government was using special mechanisms to protect Israel from domestic human rights laws to continue sending weapons.

[33] In August 2024, the Biden administration approved a $20 billion arms sale to Israel, including F-15 fighter jets and tank and mortar shells.

[34] The United States approved a $165 million sale of military tank trailers, including replacement parts, tool kits, and logistics support.

[49] In October 2024, a majority of all American doctors who had volunteered in Gaza in the prior year signed a letter to the Biden administration calling for an arms embargo.

[50] Later the same month, the editorial board of the Financial Times called for an U.S. arms embargo on Israel, stating, "Biden has the tools to rein in Netanyahu.

[55] That same month, an investigation using available open source data found that U.S. aircraft were responsible for 33 percent of reconnaissance flights, providing Israel with intelligence on ground movements in the Gaza Strip.

[56] In November 2024, the United States ordered ballistic missile defense destroyers, a fighter squadron, tanker aircraft, and Air Force B-52 long-range strike bombers to "make clear" to Iran that the U.S. would "take every measure necessary to defend" its interests in the region.

[59] On November 4, 2023, 100,000 to 300,000 people participated in the "National March on Washington: Free Palestine," marking the largest pro-Palestine protest in US history.

"[66] In a letter to The Guardian, Democratic Congressman Andre Carson accused Israel of a "war crime," citing the Israeli Defense Forces' alleged use of white phosphorus and the deadly bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp.

[69] US Republican Congressman and former aide to Donald Trump, Max Miller, speaking at Fox News stated that Palestine is "about to get eviscerated... to turn that into a parking lot."

[76] In a town hall meeting on March 25, 2024, the Republican US House representative Tim Walberg of Michigan stated that Palestinian civilians should have nuclear weapons used against them, "like Nagasaki and Hiroshima" (the Japanese cities where the US dropped atomic bombs at the end of World War Two, killing hundreds of thousands of people) in order to “Get it over quick.”[77][78][79] A group of eight Democratic Senators led by Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley, and Chris Van Hollen issued an official letter to President Joe Biden, calling on him to "enforce federal law" by requiring Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "to stop restricting humanitarian aid access to Gaza or forfeit U.S. military aid to Israel" as "The severe humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza is nearly unprecedented in modern history" and "The United States should not provide military assistance to any country that interferes with U.S. humanitarian assistance."

[80] On April 24, 2024, twelve Republicans in the U.S. Senate, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, Marsha Blackburn, Katie Boyd Britt, Ted Budd, Kevin Cramer, Bill Hagerty, Pete Ricketts, Rick Scott, and Tim Scott, sent a letter to the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Karim Ahmad Khan, which warned him that any attempt by the ICC to pursue charges against Israeli officials over war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip will be interpreted "not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States."

"[81][82][83] On May 12, 2024, Donald Trump stated, "(Biden) is surrendering our college campuses to anarchists, jihadist freaks and anti-american extremists who are trying to tear down our American flag.

[87] Doctors Without Borders said that united states veto "stands in sharp contrast to the values it professes to uphold," and that the US was providing "diplomatic cover for the ongoing atrocities in Gaza.

[85] The international rights groups said in a statement: "By continuing to provide military and diplomatic support to Israel as it commits atrocities, including the collective punishment of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the US is complicit in war crimes.

"[86] Human rights and legal experts have warned that forced displacement is a war crime under international law and could lead to ethnic cleansing.

CCR warned Biden, Blinken and Austin that they could be held responsible for not preventing and supporting Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

[96] In the lawsuit filed in federal court in California, several Gaza residents and two human rights NGOs say that the Biden administration has failed to meet its legal responsibilities to "prevent the unfolding genocide of Palestinian people.

"[97] Senior Hamas official Basem Naim criticised the US's role in the war, saying: "While these crimes have been committed with Israeli hands, they were sponsored and backed up by the US administration.